Robots arrive on campus for our construction projects
Innovative methods to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of construction projects on campus have recently been introduced with success.
A £5m investment to refurbish the Language Centre is currently underway, and as part of the delivery of this, we have been liaising with contractor Overbury to introduce automated technology; Brokk the demolition robot, and Baby Brokk a smaller version, to speed up the delivery of the project.
Brokk the Robot, was appointed to carry out demolition work within the building. There were a number of walls which required demolishing and a series of structural openings at Level 2 to create more daylight for the Language Centre. At one stage a smaller version, Baby Brokk was introduced to carry out additional work.
Robert Gale, Estates Project Manager said: “Using Brokk has brought some sizeable benefits to the refurbishment of the Language Centre project. It has speeded up the demolition work as part of the refurbishment and the robotic technology has improved efficiency on repeatable tasks. Our contractor Overbury have successfully adopted this technology on other projects and proposed to incorporate it for this project.”
Josh Donnelly, Senior Project Manager at Overbury commented: “During the planning stage of the project, the use of Brokk on the project became an obvious decision. Using Brokk is beneficial from a health and safety perspective as it reduces manual labour and exposure to HAVs (hand-arm vibration syndrome) for our operatives. That alone made its use worthwhile.
“Secondly the walls here in the Parkinson Building, where the Language Centre is located, are over half a metre thick and constructed in robust brickwork. We think Brokk completed the demolition works around four times quicker than manual labour would have. As all noisy works were undertaken out of hours in the building, there was also a major time and cost benefit associated with using Brokk which we could bring to the University. It has been a real success of the project so far.”
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